It has until 24 July to reach an agreement with bondholders, having secured a standstill after announcing that it was unable to pay the money originally due in May.

The problem for INM – owner of The Independent - is that its second largest shareholder, Denis O'Brien, is unhappy with the proposals being put to bondholders by the chief executive, Gavin O'Reilly.

O'Brien believes that a harder line should be taken in the negotiations. He also believes that INM needs to engage in a deeper and bigger restructuring.Under Irish legislation, examinership gives court protection to an insolvent limited company in order to assist in its survival. It is therefore less onerous that the British administration process.

He writes: "The big question is whether this apparent division among the main shareholders is real or part of a 'good cop/bad cop' routine that may help put pressure on bondholders to agree to a deal."

But my information is that there are genuine divisions between O'Brien and O'Reilly that are upsetting O'Reilly's attempts at finding a solution. Curran reports:

"Several offers have been put to the bondholders, including paying them a higher coupon or interest rate if they roll over part of the €200m, offering them some cash upfront or giving them 10% of the €150m INM expects to receive from the sale of some of its non-core investments.

"But perhaps the most interesting one of all is the possibility of a rights issue. INM said on June 22 that it was proposing to do a deeply discounted rights issue."

O'Brien appears not to favour a rights issue. However, it is possible that, if he did go for it, he could end up emerging as the largest shareholder.Curran writes:

"Behind the scenes, the company's actual financial position is somewhat puzzling. When it announced that it had reached a standstill agreement with bondholders, it also announced that it had borrowed a further €15m in working capital for six weeks.

"It was never clear what this money was for. It is hard to see a company generating revenues of more than €1.2bn per year requiring an additional €15m in working capital for six weeks."

INM's promised asset divestment is under way. Last week it sold a third of its 20.8% stake in Indian newspaper publisher Jagran Prakashan for €22m.

Could it now sell its 50% holding in the Irish Star, to Express Newspapers, which owns the other half? That would be a wrench, since the paper made profits of €7.2m in 2007.

But everything, it seems, is on the table just now as the company strives to avoid insolvency. Examinership would, of course, give INM some breathing space to sell off assets and would also force creditors to write off some debts. So it is a reasonable contingency plan – and one that O'Brien may well favour - but it would be a severe blow to the prestige of a global publisher.

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